Did you know that most B2B marketers believe that event marketing is the single most effective marketing channel for achieving business goals, according to Bizzabo?
With this in mind, it’s important for SMEs to extract the biggest return on investment possible from participation in live events, whether that be trade shows, conferences or seminars.
Recently, Traveknowledgy engaged DMA Partners to help them maximise their ROI from event marketing. Our brief was to help Traveknowledgy explain what they do in a clear, concise manner that would make them stand out and become ‘top of mind’ within their target market at key industry events.
In this article, we’ll walk you through 4 of the key steps we took to help Traveknowledgy to make their appearance at Travel Technology Europe a roaring success. These tips are applicable to almost any SME looking to supercharge their event marketing success.
1. A Strategic Approach
The first step in a successful event marketing plan is to adopt a strategic approach and set clear goals about what you want to achieve.
Here are some examples of potential event marketing goals you may want to consider:
increased brand awareness
lead generation
customer acquisition
The SMART goals framework is a simple format you can implement to set your objectives in an organised manner.
2. A Solid Event Marketing Budget
In order to achieve these goals, it’s important to invest accordingly so that you can make the best possible first impression.
Forrester reports that event marketing makes up for 24% of B2B marketing budgets, however, Bizzabo reports that “the most successful businesses are spending 1.7x the average marketing budget on live events”.
We’re firm believers that investing that little bit extra in preparing for events leads to the best possible outcomes. In our experience, businesses that do this, such as Traveknowledgy, have a much easier time communicating their value proposition and therefore achieving their event marketing objectives.
3. Eye-Catching Stand Design
At most events, your primary objective while there is to get people to stop by your stand and engage with your employees.
This means that your stand needs to be in a prime location and must catch the eye of members of your target audience, highlighting some key messages as they make their way through the event space.
Before engaging DMA Partners, Traveknowledgy suffered from disjointed visuals and a stand design which had too much text. This meant that their key marketing messages were lost and people were less likely to engage with them as they were unsure of the value they could bring to their business.
We worked with Traveknowledgy to simplify their marketing message and make the benefits of working with them explicitly clear with a modern, eye-catching stand design.
4. A Memorable Marketing Toolkit
Often, customers need time to think before committing to making a purchase, so it’s important that you give marketing collateral to visitors to your stand.
This collateral should reinforce your marketing message and give people a means to connect with you after the event so they can move further down your sales pipeline. It should also echo the look, feel and messaging of your stand, to further reinforce your brand across all touch points.
To help Traveknowledgy become memorable within their target market, we helped them design an event marketing toolkit.
This toolkit comprises of various marketing materials that communicate their value proposition in an attractive and clear manner.
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The results:
“Two super intensive days, we’ll see what it leads to. You did a great job on the stand, lots of compliments and was overwhelmed with work :)”
- Max Sevastianov, Founder, Traveknowledgy -
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Could your event marketing strategy benefit from an upgrade to boost your ROI? Get in touch with Philip Martin to discover how we can help: philip.martin@dma-partners.com.